We have nothing planned for today – just sort of wandering in town and then a ceviche lunch at a restaurant Ed has found. Our morning is leisurely, we don’t dock until 10, so we putz around at the gym, at breakfast, then in Cafe al Bacio for coffee before getting off. The ship is cleared and we decide to wait a little while to get off, because we have plenty of time to kill before 1pm when the restaurant opens. But, as we normally do, we get antsy and decide to leave a little after 10am, which in the end turns out to be a very good decision.
While the disembarkation announcements have said we can’t bring any food products off the ship and we will go through security at the port exit, they didn’t really explain that everyone has to be funneled through this one little building with 1 scanner and a couple of guys going through bags. And I mean everyone – including all the tours that are heading for their buses. And when you walk off the ship, the only signs point to shore excursions, not exits. So, we walk along the ship in the direction of the shore excursions, without anyone helping with actual instructions, until we bottle neck into this mass of barely moving people. We can’t decide if this is solely shore excursions or not, so I find a couple of tour gals to ask, and they confirm everyone must go through this line and security, so back we go to wait it out – actually following a couple of crew members who seem to know what they are doing and skirt a huge portion of the line (when in doubt, always follow the crew!).
It takes a good 15 minutes to get through the security line, but once we are free, it’s an easy walk outside the port and into the main town of Coquimbo. Because we are taking Uber into La Serena, we decide to walk a couple of blocks away from the port to have a specific address (in front of the Santander bank) for a pick up. That works well enough (except for the Armored truck that pulls up onto the sidewalk blocking our view of the street – oh – and the police car with his lights on trying to stop another car for something), and our driver does actually find us easily enough. He speaks little to no English, but we are getting used to that, and when he asks us if we want to go the Beach way (slow way) or the Route way (fast way), I tell him rapido, which he doesn’t understand. But finally he says La Playa is lento – and that’s my favorite word! So I tell him no, the Ruta way. Yay! Spanish 101 to the rescue.
20 minutes later, he drops us at Plaza de Armas, and begin our strolling. Of course it is Monday, so the museum we wanted to visit is closed (we knew this before we left), so we just wander around the plaza with it’s lovely little fountain and cathedral in the background. We visit the cathedral, which is lovely with exquisite stained glass windows, but otherwise very basic.
Then we walked up the busy retail street, with every store you can imagine, to the La Recova craft market, only to realize we had been here on our previous visit. We didn’t find anything we wanted then, and we don’t find anything there today either. Next we head back through town to visit the first of two parks we’ve mapped out. It’s a chilly, overcast day, which actually makes walking around very pleasant since we aren’t overheating, although it does make picture taking a little challenging and dark.
The first park is under construction for what looks like a large playground, and so obviously closed. The railway station that looked promising in the tour books turns out to be not so promising in real life, just a red building across a large road and attached to a gigantic mall. We don’t even bother crossing the street and turn our sights toward Koko No Niwa, the Japanese garden around the next corner. Following Google maps almost gets us in trouble, as they show the entrance up a hill and around another corner, when in actuality, the entrance is right across form the train station. Fortunately, our path takes us right by it, so we abandon Google and pay our entrance fee at the correct location.
A sweet guard tells us in broken English where the best view point is located, and after a quick bathroom break, we head in that direction. Of all the things you think you would find in this little Chilean town, a fabulous Japanese garden is not one of them – and this place is amazing. Begun in 1988 as a way to boost the interchange of culture between Japan and Chile the park took 6 years to complete and was inaugurated in August of 1994, marking the 450th anniversary of La Serena. The garden receives over 140,000 visitors each year, and is a place for “contemplation and relaxation as well as one that encourages tourism,” as loosely translated from the informational sign at the beginning of the path.
And truly, it is all those things, a serene little corner carved out of a busy city area (it’s sandwiched between the train station and a major boulevard). The lawn, plants and little garden areas are all beautiful and very well done. The path the guard has shown us does indeed take us up to the best viewing area in the park – with a fabulous 180 degree view of the lake, waterfall and pagodas dotting the landscape. We are in no rush, taking our time looking out across the green expanse, messing with our phone cameras and remote clicker, and generally enjoying the peace and quiet here in this little slice of ecologically friendly land mass.
We circle back down to the lake level, watching ducks and geese wander about, then explore a hot house type building with bonsai plants and trees. We find huge Koi in the pond, and lovely sitting areas in the pagodas, along with a great temple statuette for Sunny. We probably end up spending at least an hour wandering around, before we head back into the city in search of our lunch spot: Cevicheria Jack Fish Sushi and Rock.
Again, we take our time to walk the 1/4 mile from the park to Jack Fish, but still arrive a little bit early. We park ourselves on the chairs in the little outdoor eating area to wait when another guy just walks in the door. We can’t tell if he is a customer or works there, so we just hang out, when a guy, who turns out to be the owner, comes out with menus. Oh! We’ll come inside then, entering into the coolest little space we’ve seen for a restaurant. Small upholstered booths all set with traditional Japanese utensils against a backdrop of psychedelic looking murals, chalkboard menus and heavy metal band posters. Perfect! The menu is a multi-page homage to heavy metal bands – all the ceviche is named after a band – and the background art is probably similar to the Megadeath artwork. Besides the multitude of ceviche, there are tons of dishes to choose from. So many, I haven’t a clue what to get. There is sushi, sashimi, tons of different rolls and main courses – and it all looks great. When the owner comes over to take our order, I’m looking at the cream cheese rolls (yep, cream cheese on the outside of a sushi roll, sounds like a plan to me!), but I can’t decide which one. There is a tuna roll with mango and something called “palta” which is totally unfamiliar to me – turns out it is avocado! Done deal. That’s all I need to hear! Ed orders the Motorhead ceviche with Corvina, Pulpo (octopus, of course) and camarones (shrimp). The owner is all happy because he also happens to be wearing a Motorhead shirt today – and in honor of Ed’s smart meal choice, he also puts on a Motorhead video for our listening pleasure.
Our drinks arrive, and with a flourish, he fills up my wine glass to the absolute tippy top – while saying, in my Chile, this is how we fill up a glass, not those little teeny pours where you keep asking for more, more, more. We already knew we liked this guy, now he’s forever our (at least my) best friend! So, we aren’t too terribly surprised when the food comes out in huge portions. 8 cream cheese rolls, huge and creamy and absolutely fantastic, and a monstrous bowl of ceviche for Ed which he manages to finish as do I my rolls (I don’t know how, it’s a ton to eat!). We hang out a bit longer, listening to the music, finishing the massive glass of wine and Ed’s beer, then paying the tab and wandering back outside to find an Uber back to the port.
We walk up the street a ways, to get out of the heavy traffic around the restaurant and the hospital across the street, so we can be situated on one of the main thoroughfares out of town. This strategy works pretty well and we have an Uber in a couple of minutes, who with great music playing in the background, quickly gets us out of La Serena and back to Coquimbo. As we approach the port, we pass some sea lions and then get into the pier area where there are lots of little seafood restaurants lining the dock. The driver asks if it is all right to drop us off outside the Port, because Uber is illegal there, and we of course are fine with that. We even tell him to just stop right where we are, we don’t mind a walk along the pier, which sort of surprises him (I guess he’s not used to people who don’t mind being dropped off away from their desired location).
We pop out of the car by the restaurants and wander our way down the seafront to the Port. We still have a good amount of Chilean Pesos that we would like to spend, but don’t’ want any more food, that’s for sure, so we figure we’ll look around the little artisan market by the port. But, along the way we see this guy sitting all alone a ways from the market with paintings made on small pieces of glass. He’s got his paints and everything all set up right there, and as we begin to look at the paintings on display, he starts to show us how he paints with his fingers on the glass, and then puts details in with his paint brushes. Totally cool! (And this time I even !managed to get a photo or 2 of him actually painting!) He also makes the little metal stands he has with the pictures, there is a coil of metal wire in his bag that he uses to fashion the metal. We ask how much, and he says 1 for $3, 2 for $5. No way! These are really quite nice – and as an added bonus, he shows us how they are 2 sided, because the painting shows through the back of the glass. No question, 2 of these are coming home with us. And when I ask about the price in Pesos, it’s even better at 3000 Pesos. Done – and we are now the proud owner of 2 really cool paintings on glass, hand made metal stands included.
Good thing we got there when we did too, because as we are leaving he is crowded with buyers – guess we started a good thing! Walking back to the port, we stop to gaze out over the marina waters with all the different fishing boats moored there, then wander through the market, finding nothing of any value to us. So, with Pesos still in our pocket, we get back aboard to start our journey further up the coast of South America.
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